From Laid off on Maternity Leave to $500K Success in 9 months with Julia Arpag

Julia Arpag [00:00:01]:
Welcome to the Elite Recruiter podcast with your host, Benjamin Menna, where we focus on what it takes to win in the recruiting game. We cover it all from sales, marketing, mindset, money, leadership and placements.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:19]:
A few quick announcements before we get started. First of all, the recruiting growth summit registration is now open. It's going to be a game changing event for your recruiting career. Make sure to sign up. It is called finish the year strong. And secondly, gap selling book of the month. I'm excited about this episode of the Elite Recruiter podcast. My guess, while on maternity leave, got laid off taking care of her baby.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:44]:
Her whole world got thrown upside down, but she turned it around and in nine months made $500,000 in recruiting. And we're going to talk about some of the things that she did to get there, the strategies, the ins and outs, starting a company launching. But my God, talk about the world just coming at you. And you're having to make a pivot and having to make a decision while you're taking care of a tiny human. Julia Arpegg, welcome to the podcast. I'm excited for you to share your story.

Julia Arpag [00:01:13]:
Thank you, Benjamin. It's so good to be here. Thank you for having me.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:16]:
All right, so we're going to talk about getting into recruiting, like in a second. First of all, share what happened, like, with that. I'm pissed for you. I'm pissed for you.

Julia Arpag [00:01:27]:
Oh, gracious. I know, I know. You guys have a tiny human of your own, so you get what a crazy season it is. So I'm actually a mom of four. I have two foster sons who are 13 and 14. And then I have two biological sons who are three years old. And the one who I got laid off while he was five weeks old. So it was a pretty crazy situation.

Julia Arpag [00:01:47]:
Shortly after I went out on mat leave, I was still close with a lot of my colleagues. So I was hearing how bad things were. I was hearing that all of our clients were dropping off. I was hearing that there was just no business. There were layoffs after layoffs. And then finally my CEO called me one Friday afternoon and he was like, yeah, I'm sorry, there's just no money. There's no business. He actually laid off three of us.

Julia Arpag [00:02:10]:
I was one of three people that was laid off on maternity leave. So three new moms, one of them we've now hired at my company, thank God. And one actually decided to be a full time stay at home mom. So it all worked out. But, yeah, it was a pretty crazy moment in my life, for sure.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:25]:
So you got the call. I mean, I hate to say this, at least you kind of saw, like, some writing.

Julia Arpag [00:02:29]:
Very. No, I was not surprised at all when I got the call.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:32]:
Yeah, so you got the call. Like, what'd you do next?

Julia Arpag [00:02:35]:
You know when your stomach is, like, not churning, but your stomach is like, let's go. Your stomach is, like, adrenaline, like, go mode. That's how I felt. Like, whenever I feel intense emotion, I feel it in my gut. I don't know about anyone else listening, but that's how it comes for me. So I was like, all right, like, what are we going to do next? I immediately went into strategy, long term planning. Like you said, I'd seen the writing on the wall even before I went out on mat leave. So I had already been having feel out kind of conversations with a couple of different companies.

Julia Arpag [00:03:03]:
And so I reached out to those companies and I was like, hey, this is what happened. Immediately got several offers. So by the time two weeks post layoff, I had received six offers. Like, I already had a bunch of conversations happening, a bunch of contacts that were interested, another company that wanted to move me through the interview process. So all that being said, immediate reaction was, okay, let's go. And then within two weeks, I had a lot of different options, which I was very grateful for.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:28]:
Oh, man, that's awesome. So how did you get those options set up while pretty much on maternity leave? Because there's a lot of times companies are, I just say this, a little scared of that. How did you, like, navigate?

Julia Arpag [00:03:38]:
I was upfront. I was like, I'm on mat leave and I'm not. I'm not available. Like, I can start. I still wanted to take my mat leave. Like, my plan was to take a four month mat leave. So I was like, I'm taking this mat leave. I will come work for you in four months.

Julia Arpag [00:03:51]:
And they were like, great. Sounds good.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:52]:
Cool, that's awesome. All right, so let's take a few steps back. How did you even end up in this wonderful world of recruiting?

Julia Arpag [00:03:57]:
Oh, this wonderful world. So I, like everyone else on this show, ended up in it. When I was in college, I was an english lit major. Cause all I knew is that I liked to read and write and I had no career prospects. Like, it literally shocks me that I have, like, a real job. Like, as I was in college, I was like, I'll probably just end up, like, playing drums in a drum circle in a park somewhere. I was just like, there's no way I'm gonna make any money. So I graduate.

Julia Arpag [00:04:21]:
I moved to New York City because that's what everyone does. I'm from New York and worked at Soulcycle, of all places. Hated it. It was terrible. Moved back home to upstate, where I'm from. Ended up getting a job working with college kids and high school students, preparing to go to college. And I loved that. I've worked with students and kids for my whole.

Julia Arpag [00:04:40]:
I've done internships in that I started, you know, as soon as I could work, I worked at a day camp. So I really, really loved that. But I was like, I don't think I can work with high school students for the rest of my life. So after that program ended, it was an Americorps kind of, like, service program. I got a job doing undergrad recruitment, where I recruited students to go to a college. And then same thing. I was like, I love recruitment, but I don't think I can work with 17 year olds and their parents forever. So then I got into corporate recruitment from there.

Julia Arpag [00:05:08]:
Cause I realized I love working with people. So that's kind of been the theme.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:12]:
So corporate recruiting and what was your path from there up until you got laid off?

Julia Arpag [00:05:18]:
Yeah. So my first corporate recruitment job was at the boys and girls club's corporate office here in Atlanta. That was my only in house recruitment role I've ever had. And it was not for me. It was very slow pace. There was so much red tape, and they were one of the organizations that insisted on in office. And I was like, I'm so confused. My job requires the phone and a computer.

Julia Arpag [00:05:40]:
Why do you need me to commute? An hour and a half went away, and they did not have a compelling answer. So I left and got a fully remote agency recruiting job with Wilson HCG, which is an amazing RPO company. I love, love, loved my time there. Taught me everything I know, everything that's undergirded, why I'm good at my job. To be totally transparent. And then from there, I got headhunted by secure vision, which was my last RPO that I worked at. And I spent two years there. And that was amazing because they were a really small company.

Julia Arpag [00:06:08]:
So I got a really good sense of, like, the behind the scenes how to actually structure a recruitment agency. And that's part of what kind of put the idea in my head to start my own company. Even before I got laid off, I was kind of already thinking about it because I'd gotten that exposure. So that was the company that laid me off. Five exposed part of. And now here I am.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:26]:
Oh, that's awesome. So okay. The listeners, we gave them a highlight that out of the gate, like, first nine months, 500,000. That's like, top billing. That's a. That's a big bill. That's a significant amount of money. Especially, like, after going through the craziness of getting let go on Matli, like, would you do to get out the door and out the gate and to get clients in love with you?

Julia Arpag [00:06:47]:
Yeah. Thank you for asking that. Yes. I'll be honest, I'm very proud of our team for what we've accomplished in a short amount of time. What really helped is, honestly, the timing, the fact that I had just gotten laid off. I had all these offers, and two of those offers became some of our first clients, because when I turned down that opportunity internally with them, I said, but I'm starting my own firm. Would you want to be a client? And two of them said yes. So that was huge.

Julia Arpag [00:07:11]:
And someone asked me, your strategy to get clients should not be to apply for jobs and then bait and switch them and say, actually, can you please? You should not do that. This just happened to work out. But those were two of them. And then also some of my former clients that I've worked with across my recruiting career came to me, and they said, hey, I want to work with you. And it would just went from there.

Benjamin Mena [00:07:31]:
They found out that you, like, launched your firm, and they're like, hey, we want to be a client. Would you do any relationships?

Julia Arpag [00:07:35]:
The reason I decided to go all in on launching a line, to pedal back a little bit, I actually took one of those full time w two offers. I said yes. I was like, starting a business feels too scary. I have four kids. One of them is literally five weeks old. I do not feel like right now is the right time to start a business. I had accepted this offer, told that company that I would start a couple months later, and then a guy that I recruited for a director of engineering, he dmed me on LinkedIn, and he was like, hey, I'd like to work with you to recruit for my engineering team. Are you still with your old RPO? And the moment I was like, no, but I actually just started my own recruitment firm.

Julia Arpag [00:08:11]:
And then I slapped it together, started recruiting for. And then it just took off from there. So I circled back to the company that I'd said yes to, and I just said, hey, I'm so sorry. But things really took off with this company, and then they became one of our clients. So everything literally worked out.

Benjamin Mena [00:08:28]:
That is so literally, you had somebody that just like, hey, like, I need help. And you're like, yeah, I can do that. Don't worry about that. Like, we'll figure this out. We will. We will have a plane on the way down.

Julia Arpag [00:08:41]:
Yeah. When opportunity knocks, you open the door. Man.

Benjamin Mena [00:08:44]:
There are so many people out there. They probably would have gotten that call, because listen to this. This is something that I ran into when I first launched. Somebody was like, hey, can you do contractors? I'm like, I can't afford contractors. I can't do that. And you just went like, I will figure it out.

Julia Arpag [00:08:56]:
I will figure it out.

Benjamin Mena [00:08:57]:
Yes. Like, for the listeners out there, if, like, opportunity knocks, don't shut the door. Try to build a plane on the way down.

Julia Arpag [00:09:06]:
Yep.

Benjamin Mena [00:09:06]:
You can do it.

Julia Arpag [00:09:07]:
You can do it. That's my best advice to you. You can do it.

Benjamin Mena [00:09:10]:
So, okay, so, I mean, you picked up your first client. Yeah. Your first few clients. From there, where did you start going and how did you really start building?

Julia Arpag [00:09:20]:
Yeah, no, that's such a good question. So from there, I had no idea what to do. I was like, okay, I'm out of warm leads. What do I do now? So I actually came across Diane Prince, who's been on your show before. She is very active on LinkedIn, posting about her story of she's successfully exited five different recruitment companies. One of them she sold for $28 million. And as you know, it's very rare to find these, like, kick ass female leaders, CEO's bosses, like, people that are displaying, and they're female. So I reached out to her.

Julia Arpag [00:09:52]:
I got on her calendar, and I was basically asking her, listen, I want to know how to do what you did. Like, not that I'm necessarily going to sell, but I want to know how to scale. Like, how do I scale past just a couple of warm leads in my immediate circle? And she gave me a ton of value on that initial free call. But I went away, you know, like every bootstrapped recruitment founder, I was like, oh, we can't afford an executive coach. That's too expensive. We can't do that. So I sat on it for, gosh, a month, two months, and then I was like, I really think this is worth the investment. So I circled back with her.

Julia Arpag [00:10:23]:
We did one on one coaching for three months every single week, and then I dm'd her constantly. That poor girl's inbox was blown up by me every single day, multiple times. So many questions. And really, she helped me build an outbound strategy. But I have never done sales in my life. I've never run a 360 desk. I've only ever done recruitment delivery, so I've never sold anything. I had no idea what to do, like, where to start.

Julia Arpag [00:10:44]:
And she gave me a very, very clear roadmap. And her advice is, always, do what works for you. So it made me less afraid to test things because there was no failure. You test it, it didn't work great. You got information, now you get to go test something else.

Benjamin Mena [00:11:01]:
I think that's one of the things that a lot of recruiters like. One of the struggles, if you start your own firm, you're out on your own. It's many times, like, I've been so good at recruiting, or I was in this sales system somewhere else. Now I'm all by myself. Like, what do I do? How do I make these things work for you or work for me?

Julia Arpag [00:11:17]:
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Benjamin Mena [00:11:20]:
Would you mind sharing, like, a strategy or two that kind of really helped you build it, that was working for your outbound strategy?

Julia Arpag [00:11:27]:
Yes, yes, yes. Very happy to share. So, one thing I do every day, this is more marketing than sales, but I post every single day on LinkedIn, and that's something I enjoy. Like, I don't think that's for everyone. But even before I started the business, I had found this other guy, Toby. All you ole. Highly recommend. He offers a LinkedIn branding course.

Julia Arpag [00:11:44]:
I have literally no skin in this game. I get nothing if you guys hire him. But I took his LinkedIn writing course, and that just intrigued me. Like I said, I was an english major. I like writing. So that was one thing that on almost all my sales calls, people are like, wow, your LinkedIn content is very compelling. And they'll name, like, a specific post that really made them want to speak with me. I don't get inbound from LinkedIn, but my outbound, when people respond to it, they've seen my LinkedIn content, and that makes them want to talk to me.

Julia Arpag [00:12:12]:
So that's one marketing strategy. Another that works for me is dripify. So, automating my LinkedIn outreach, I write these highly personalized messages, and I run multiple campaigns at a time to different people for different reasons with different copy. And that's been really effective and really fun. And I've actually gotten a very, very high acceptance and response rate to. Dripify is a LinkedIn automation tool for anyone who doesn't know it. Auto connects with people that you build a list in sales navigator and then shoot them out. I average about a 50% connection rate and about a 25% response rate, which I'm very, very proud of and very excited about.

Julia Arpag [00:12:48]:
So that's been very helpful. And then the last piece is, I follow the, I forget the name of the organization, but they recommend a 510 20 rule where you dm five people every day, totally individually. Like, you cold write a totally new message to them. You comment on ten people that are in your prospect list, on comments of theirs or on post of theirs and LinkedIn, and then you connect with 20 new people per day.

Benjamin Mena [00:13:11]:
Oh, that's a great strategy.

Julia Arpag [00:13:12]:
Yeah. Do it, take it, steal it. Everyone go do it.

Benjamin Mena [00:13:16]:
I mean, it's one of those things like doable, right?

Julia Arpag [00:13:18]:
Like sales can feel so scary and huge, but if you just block off an hour of your day, you can knock that out.

Benjamin Mena [00:13:23]:
So you can knock that out in an hour.

Julia Arpag [00:13:26]:
Well, because dripify is automated, I pre write my LinkedIn posts. I typically batch write like five to ten at a time, so that doesn't take too long to actually write in the moment. I'm also actively recruiting, so I spend sourcing, screening, submitting, meeting with clients, and then doing sales calls, doing internal calls with my team. But yeah, about an hour a day I carve out to do outbound outreach.

Benjamin Mena [00:13:47]:
So if you're listening, carve out 1 hour. I think that's a mistake that a lot of recruiters make. It's a mistake that I've made myself personally is like you doing so much on the recruiting side, you forget the BD side of the house, and you really got to keep that up. So with the family life that you have, one of the things that we were talking about offline was you've set aside some deep work time, but it's also your day's set up, so you still have a lot of family time because I know that's one of the things that you see a lot of, like solopreneurs or recruitment firm owners working the 70, 90 hours a week, but you're working smarter. Can you talk about, like, how you have your day set up and how you're doing deep work?

Julia Arpag [00:14:26]:
Yeah, I would love to do that. So I think a lot of my success, honestly comes from my schedule. So I wake up at 430 every morning. I absolutely need quiet time in the morning to get my mind right. So the first thing I do is I journal, I pray, I meditate, I spend time in scripture. I'm a Christian, so I very, very much need that time alone with God with my cup of coffee first thing in the morning. Then I work out. So I have now left Soulcycle and I have a peloton.

Julia Arpag [00:14:50]:
So I'm a peloton person, so I spend my time doing my peloton work out. Then my kids typically get up around 6630. So I get the older kids ready for school, they get on the bus. The younger kids, we play, we hang out, we have breakfast. Our nanny gets to the house around 830. And then I am just plugging away up in my office from 830 to three. I do not take breaks. I do not stop.

Julia Arpag [00:15:14]:
I like, barely get up to go to the bathroom. Like, I'm very, very focused. I have a very clear to do list every day. And then at 03:00 I log off, spend time with my kids. We do family time, dinner, bed, and then 730, I log back on to handle anything that I didn't get to earlier that day. And also to plan how I need to attack the next day.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:35]:
Okay, so when you have a plan, like, what does your plan look like? Because the reason why I'm trying to talk about this is because I know some people have, like, the three items and that's it. Like, what does your attack tomorrow look like for you?

Julia Arpag [00:15:48]:
Yeah, that's a good question. So I typically have, like, the little to do list items that I'm just like, oh, don't forget to do this like, two minute task. But then I also have the higher level strategy stuff. So I write it all down. I'm like a paper, paper planner kind of person. Like, I literally write it physically down with a pen. Like, that's my how I think best. So I make two lists.

Julia Arpag [00:16:06]:
List one is today, these, like, little granular things need to get taken care of. So right now, one of the roles I'm working on, I got to get more candidates in process. So I carved out 30 minutes today source on this role. I'm also trying a new outbound marketing strategy. So today the first thing I need to do is write the script for that strategy. So I have all of these, like, big ticket items over here, and then over here is the little granular things that need to happen to get that big strategy done.

Benjamin Mena [00:16:31]:
Oh, nice. Okay. That is awesome because it's one of the things that I've seen constantly. If you don't know what you're going to do for the day, you can spend hours, and then at the end of the day, you're like, oh, crap. Yeah, I was productive. I was productive. And you do like two messages, two LinkedIn connections.

Julia Arpag [00:16:45]:
Yeah, yeah. People will take your day away from you if you don't take the day yourself. You need to decide what your priorities are for the day.

Benjamin Mena [00:16:53]:
So one of the things that I want to take a backtrack on is you really do a good job with relationships.

Julia Arpag [00:16:59]:
Oh, thank you, Benjamin. That's kind.

Benjamin Mena [00:17:01]:
If a company's reaching out to you, they're probably having recruiters hitting you up constantly, but they reach back out to you. You did something right. Why do clients like you? Like, what are you doing different?

Julia Arpag [00:17:11]:
Oh, I appreciate that question. So, like you said, I think me and my whole team are very intentional relationship builders. So we don't see clients as transactional. We don't see candidates as transactional. I think they can feel our ethos as a company that we actually deeply care for the people that we work with, and our process is very intentional. So, like you said, a lot of recruiters are just kind of scattered in basically every component of their business in the way that they source, the way that they get new clients, the way that they move candidates through the process. And we are hyper focused on our process. And I present that exact process during my sales calls and in a lot of my LinkedIn content.

Julia Arpag [00:17:49]:
So clients typically already know that we're hyper focused on that process before they even talk to me. And that's honestly a big reason why our clients come and then why they stay.

Benjamin Mena [00:17:58]:
Is that something that you just had to figure out the process? Something? Yeah.

Julia Arpag [00:18:02]:
Oh, no. I begged, borrowed, and stole that shit. Yeah. That's something that I took from every role I've ever had. I basically have combined the best practices of every company I've ever worked for, plus the coaching I got from Diane, plus the books I'm reading and the podcasts. I'm listening to some of your podcasts, Benjamin, have been very helpful in helping me just constantly tweak and iterate and improve our process and our approach. So, yeah, it's a constant journey to be the absolute best I can be.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:28]:
I love that. Always improving. You've made the shift like, you've had a great year. You have a team that's growing. You, like, took La Roya Lemons and made lemonade almost instantly. What were some of the biggest shifts, whether it's mindset, work ethic, or the things that you're doing that you had to do from going from a w two employee to now being a business owner.

Julia Arpag [00:18:52]:
Yeah, I love that question. So, I'm very into affirmations. I have been for years, actually, since I became a foster parent, because that was the hardest thing I've ever done. It was becoming a foster parent. So I have been controlling my thoughts very intentionally for four years. So I already had that muscle built. So then when I became a business owner, I used that muscle to create affirmations around confidence, around money, because it is very scary to not have, like, a consistent paycheck coming in. So I basically had to decide, I am going to bring money in, I am going to be confident in my ability to build this business, and I'm going to be confident in my ability to provide for my family.

Julia Arpag [00:19:31]:
Even though I don't have someone else writing my check now, I have all my clients writing my check. So I've just kind of shifted my mindset to, this is going to happen. So that was the biggest shift for me, was just basically the confidence.

Benjamin Mena [00:19:41]:
How can somebody learn to build that confidence muscle?

Julia Arpag [00:19:45]:
Gosh, so many things. Honestly, the big thing is do hard things. Like, ok, right here in my office, you can do hard things. I have had this on my wall for the last seven years. So this is not new. Like this idea of belief and just choosing the things that you feed your mind. So if you want to build confidence, then you need to choose to feed your mind. You can do hard things.

Julia Arpag [00:20:09]:
You can overcome, you can persevere. You can figure it out. I read mindset a couple years ago by Carol Dweck, back when Covid was happening and everything was insane. My role shifted significantly during that time as a w two employee. And I had to learn how to recruit for a completely different client, a totally different position, a totally different skill set was needed. I had to become better. I had to level up. And that's when I really realized everything is figureoutable.

Julia Arpag [00:20:33]:
You just decide, you decide, I'm going to figure this out. And then you keep that thought in your mind.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:39]:
How do you keep it in your mind on those tough days?

Julia Arpag [00:20:41]:
That's where my morning meditation comes in. I honestly repeat affirmations that I want to be true in my life. And every morning, while I'm doing my hair, do my makeup, I listen to an abundance affirmation, the same one every single day as a ten minute meditation on Spotify. So whatever speaks to you, whatever encourages your spirit, you find that and you hold onto it like a dog with a bone.

Benjamin Mena [00:21:04]:
Okay, that was awesome. So we're going to shift gears a little bit again. And this is a conversation that we had offline that I want to take online. So I had a tax guy talk on the podcast. There were some things that I think that he missed out that you were explaining that I think listeners should hear. So, first of all, what do you think that he left out. And what are some things that like recruiters, solopreneurs or business owners should be thinking about on a tax perspective?

Julia Arpag [00:21:27]:
Yeah. So since becoming a business owner, I have learned so much about taxes. It is not my favorite topic, but I am grateful for this information because it has allowed me to take home more of my hard earned money. So I want to share this with your audience. So the biggest thing is the tax guy, I loved him. I forget his name, but he was delightful. I don't want to throw him under the bus, but I do want to say he missed out on telling your audience that all of them should go right now and file to be an s corp. If you are an s corp, then when you pay yourself distributions as a business owner, they are not subject to self employment tax.

Julia Arpag [00:22:06]:
They are only subject to federal and state tax. You still have to pay yourself some kind of salary through your payroll provider. But it can be as low as is reasonable. That's the IR's language. Reasonable. So very, very up to interpretation. And then anything you want to pay yourself outside of that is paid out to you as a distribution. And that, like I said, is not taxable with self employment tax.

Julia Arpag [00:22:27]:
So please, please, please, today, go become an s corp. You can do it. It's very easy. File it online or you really should have a CPA. If you don't, please go hire a CPA and they can do it for you.

Benjamin Mena [00:22:39]:
Awesome. So we've covered a lot. We covered, like, really just jumping in and starting to swim. And with your own business, you know, within nine months, was able to pull in $500,000, which is absolutely incredible. That's more than, like, many people have done in like, one to two years. So is there anything else that you want to share about those topics?

Julia Arpag [00:22:58]:
Yeah, I mean, my encouragement is really just decide what you want and then stop at nothing to get it. That's literally why we're sitting where we're sitting right now. That's honestly why our business has been so successful, is because I simply decided I was going to do this. And then I never looked back. And to your point, we're nine months in, right? So when I'm nine years in, I will have a completely different answer to that question. And I will have gone through so many hills and valleys. But as of right now, what I've seen is you persevere. And I've had low months.

Julia Arpag [00:23:26]:
I had two months where I closed literally zero new business, not a single new client. Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. And then over the past seven weeks, I've closed six new clients. So it's so cyclical, and you just have to keep going. That's the biggest thing I've learned, is even when there's days, weeks and months that it seems like nothing's working, you just have to keep going. You have to persevere.

Benjamin Mena [00:23:47]:
I absolutely love that. Well, jumping over to the quick fire questions, and I think these are going to be interesting just because, like, you know, w two now a business owner and you're growing a team, like, you have recruiters working for you now. What advice would you give to somebody that's actually just getting started in this industry in 2024?

Julia Arpag [00:24:06]:
Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Start with the end in mind. Like, where do you want to go? What's your goal? Do you want to be a business owner? Okay, then you need to be the absolute best you can possibly be. Do you not want to be a business owner? You need to be the absolute best you could possibly be. I would say, gosh, this was on the wall of my 6th grade English teacher, and I have never forgotten it. Anything worth doing is worth doing well. Everything I do in my life, I do with a high level of intensity, a high level of intention, and that is my best advice to anyone in this industry.

Julia Arpag [00:24:37]:
There are so many crappy recruiters. I don't know why they're doing this. They could go do something easier for, well, lost money. I'll be honest, you can make a lot of money recruitment. But if you don't love it, don't do it. If you're not good at it, don't do it. Or if you're not willing to get good at it, don't do it. So I would say discipline is the key to success at every single level, beginning, middle and end of your career.

Benjamin Mena [00:24:58]:
Well, now I'm asking the same question. We'll go with the middle of the career. What advice would you give them based on everything that you've been saying and everything that you've done?

Julia Arpag [00:25:06]:
Benjamin? Same answer. Discipline. Don't give up. Don't stop. No, I would say at this point, you've probably figured out what you're good at, what you enjoy, where your skill sets are, where you want to go. Like, now you've gotten more information. And I would say, just execute. Like, I talked to someone yesterday who wants to make the plunge into full time working for herself, but she's nervous.

Julia Arpag [00:25:26]:
She's had this vision for years, and she just hasn't done it. And that, to me, is so depressing. That makes me so sad. She has the skillset. She has the knowledge. She has the ability, but she is afraid. So I just think all the time about what will you wish you had done and what's the worst that can happen. So I would say middle of your career, you probably have a better sense now of what you want, so now just go after it.

Benjamin Mena [00:25:48]:
I was afraid to make the jump into my own career field or my own business for a while. You know, we thought about it. We talked about it. Pure fear. Like, I had multiple people that said, just excuse the language. Just fucking do it.

Julia Arpag [00:25:58]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:25:59]:
It took me getting, you know, a layoff before making a jump.

Julia Arpag [00:26:02]:
Like, yeah, me, which, me too. Like, hear me say I had thought about it for about a year. So I'm not saying don't be intentional and don't take your time with a decision. Right. This is a huge decision to actually make the leap. So please don't hear me be cavalier about it or say you need to just rush a decision. What I'm saying is, when you've weighed the pros and cons, you know what you want to do. Gosh, I wish I could go back to the self.

Julia Arpag [00:26:25]:
I was, you know, when I had been sitting on this for a year and be like, girlfriend, what do you. What? Like, what. What's the worst case? So that's my opinion.

Benjamin Mena [00:26:36]:
I will say if you're, like, looking at making a jump, like, you can do things now to prepare yourself for that road or that fork in the road changes. I know we were stacking up our cash because, you know, when you launch a business, net 30, net 45, or, you know, net ten, whatever it is, you might not get paid for a while.

Julia Arpag [00:26:53]:
Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah, I hear that. And we're the same way. So my husband, we took a baby moon with the baby that was just born nine months ago, ten months ago now. And on that baby moon, we planned, like, okay, when I start my business, we need to have this amount of money in savings. Like, we have this whole plan, and then three months later, I got laid off. So to your point, I totally hear you.

Julia Arpag [00:27:14]:
Like, there's an element of financial planning, of lifestyle planning. Like, you absolutely need to have those elements in place, for sure. In my case, I'm honestly just so grateful that I got laid off because it kicked me out of the nest and I needed that.

Benjamin Mena [00:27:27]:
So for the person that's sitting there thinking, planning, if you can give them one piece of advice, what would be.

Julia Arpag [00:27:34]:
I would say, get super specific about what kind of Runway you have and what kind of Runway you'll give yourself? So, like, when I started aligned, we had that one client, like I said, that had reached out and said, hey, I want to work with you. We had nothing besides that. Like, no other business had closed yet. No other business was even on the horizon. So my husband and I sat down and I said, okay, listen, if I make this amount of money within the first year, I want to be able to keep going. Like, I want that to be enough for us to keep trying to build the business. If I don't make that amount of money in the first year, okay, I'll wipe my hands, I'll give up, I'll close down the business, and I'll go get a full time w two job. So we agreed on that.

Julia Arpag [00:28:12]:
We set a number, we set a timeline, and we agreed. So that would be my advice to you. Just crunch those numbers so you can go forward with confidence.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:19]:
Absolutely. Love that. Has there been a book that's had a huge impact on your own personal career and success?

Julia Arpag [00:28:24]:
I have so many. So I already mentioned mindset that was hugely impactful. I recently read never split the difference. Huge, huge fan. Highly recommend. I read the four hour work week a couple months ago. Totally transformative. That's why I'm so productive during the day.

Julia Arpag [00:28:38]:
Because you actually don't need 40, 50, 60 hours to make a ton of moves and make a ton of impact. Yeah. Those are the three. I'll say.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:46]:
Awesome. It sounds like you've been successful, like, throughout multiple parts of your career. Is there a reason that you've been more successful than, we'll say, some of your peers? Is there something that just drives you?

Julia Arpag [00:28:58]:
I am very intense. I'm a very intense person. I've been given that feedback by everyone that's ever met me. I don't know if you know the enneagram, but I'm an enneagram eight, which is a very driven person. It's someone who stops at nothing to accomplish whatever they're looking to accomplish. For me, actually, I've never been motivated by money. Never. I grew up as one of seven kids.

Julia Arpag [00:29:25]:
My dad was a teacher. My mom worked part time. We didn't have a lot, but I was very happy. So when I became an adult, I was like, oh, like, money is like, whatever you need. It's like, buy food, but that's basically it. I'm shocked and confused that I make money. Like I said, that never drove me. What drove me was high performance.

Julia Arpag [00:29:43]:
I wanted to be the best at what I did, and I've been a straight a student. I went to a good college. I've sought to be the best in every team I've ever been on. That's what drove me, was being the top performer and being the best in whatever space I was in.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:57]:
How have you shifted that into being, like, a business owner, where you're managing multiple hats, you're managing team members, you're managing clients. Like, it's going from, like, an individual contributor in a college, individual contributor in a job, individual contributor in potentially athletics. Now you have multiple hats. Like, how do you juggle the high performance of everything that you have to wear?

Julia Arpag [00:30:21]:
Yeah, that's a great question. And that's something that sometimes feels overwhelming. Like, there's definitely overwhelmed. Like, don't hear me say that. I wake up every day and I'm like, oh, I feel nothing but confidence and joy. That's definitely not the case. I have to decide. I have to decide if I'm going to sit in the overwhelm or if I'm going to sit in the confidence.

Julia Arpag [00:30:37]:
So what I do, like I said, I still work with Diane. She is extremely helpful in terms of helping me figure out, okay, what should my priorities be? There's endless things you could be doing as a business owner. Like, you could literally work 24 hours a day, literally forever, until you die, and you'll never accomplish them all. So the goal for me has to be, okay, let me get granular about what are my priorities? So that's key for me. And then maintaining the high performance mindset. To me, to be honest, I actually don't like setting monetary goals. I like setting intentions. So, for me, for example, my number one priority is to deliver at the clients that we have.

Julia Arpag [00:31:16]:
So I put a ton of time and energy into investing in my team, investing in our strategy, like I said, investing in our process, because there's no point in me busting my tail to close a new client if we're then going to do a crappy job recruiting for them. That's not what we're doing here. That's not why we're here. So that, for example, is a really, really high priority for me right now.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:35]:
You've had a ton of success in a short window of time. Do you think you could have had that kind of success without a coach?

Julia Arpag [00:31:41]:
No, absolutely not.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:42]:
What do you think your path would have been right now if you didn't have a coach?

Julia Arpag [00:31:45]:
Oh, probably half my revenue.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:48]:
Okay. And this is actually my favorite question, and I got a new question coming up after this. But if you get a chance to give yourself advice at the beginning of your recruiting career, what advice would you tell yourself?

Julia Arpag [00:32:00]:
Oh, I love that question. I would say, hang in there. It gets better. It'll be okay. This was back when I was sitting in a windowless cubicle after sitting in an hour and a half of Atlanta traffic, working for a boss who hated technology so much that she would print out emails and then walk into my office to discuss them with me. I stayed at that job for a year, and I was like, man, this is terrible. And I would just go back and say, yes, it is terrible, and I promise it's going to get so much better.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:28]:
Printed out emails.

Julia Arpag [00:32:29]:
Benjamin, I'm not kidding. It was unbelievable.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:31]:
It almost sounds like my federal recruiting job I had for a short while before I quit. They wanted me to print out applications every day because the executives, you know, taxpayer funded, didn't like using computers.

Julia Arpag [00:32:43]:
Yes. Yes. Benjamin. My boss refused to learn how to use our ATS. Like, she wouldn't use it. So I was like, okay, well, that's how everything I do happens. So I don't really know where we go from here.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:58]:
I had to print out the applications and the resumes.

Julia Arpag [00:33:01]:
That's psychotic. But I'm not surprised. There's environments like that. It's good. So, advice to yourself, would you have said, don't worry, it gets better?

Benjamin Mena [00:33:07]:
I would have told myself, quit sooner.

Julia Arpag [00:33:11]:
Love that. Good for you. That's awesome.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:13]:
Same question. But, like, with everything that you know now, if you got the chance to sit down with yourself right after you started your own business, what would you tell yourself?

Julia Arpag [00:33:21]:
Honestly, I'm really grateful with how everything played out. I wouldn't necessarily change anything about what we did. I think I would just say, you can do this, you could do hard things. You can do it. You're going to be okay? Because I just had so many nerves at the beginning there. So I think I would just tell myself, nerves are normal. Adrenaline is normal. This is something new and hard and scary.

Julia Arpag [00:33:38]:
It's normal that you're feeling kind of freaked out, but it's going to work out.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:42]:
And working on this new question. So my podcast in the future might be a little different, but if you, your future self, five years from now, your future state, could give yourself advice to get to that path, what advice and where would you be?

Julia Arpag [00:33:58]:
Yeah, I think a lot about that. Like, what is my 510 15 year goal? So, I mean, everything I've heard is execution, discipline, consistency. Like, the things Diane says, the things that are working now, keep working those and if they stop working, come up with new things. So always get coaching and support from people who are further along the path than you. So I'm sure my five year old in the future self will thank me, I hope for the consistency and the discipline now.

Benjamin Mena [00:34:28]:
Awesome. Well, we've covered a lot before I let you go. First of all, if somebody wants to follow you, how can they follow you?

Julia Arpag [00:34:35]:
Yeah, thanks for asking that. So our website is aligned recruitment.com and my name again is Julia Arpag. I am the only Julia Arpag on LinkedIn, so you will very easily be able to find me. Like I mentioned earlier, I post every day, so if you do follow me, you'll know pretty much exactly what I'm thinking and feeling at all times.

Benjamin Mena [00:34:56]:
So I wish I was the only Benjamin Mennon on LinkedIn.

Julia Arpag [00:34:59]:
Wouldn't that be cool? I know. I am grateful for my turkish last name that I married into. My old last name was Stack. Julia Stack is much more common. But Julia Arpago, one of the guys.

Benjamin Mena [00:35:08]:
I got two calls yesterday. There's a doctor in Tampa, Florida that his name is Benjamin Mena and somehow, like my phone numbers are somehow attached to him. So they're like, I'm getting doctor's calls constantly.

Julia Arpag [00:35:19]:
Hilarious. Oh my gosh, that's so funny.

Benjamin Mena [00:35:23]:
Well, before I let you go, this has been awesome. So glad that you've came unshared. Is there anything else that you want to share with the listeners?

Julia Arpag [00:35:30]:
Yes, I just want to encourage you guys. So honestly, I used to listen to the elite recruiter back when I was a w two recruiter, and honestly I was like, why am I listening to this? Like, I don't really care. Like, who cares? Like I don't care if I get better. No big deal. Like I just wasn't as motivated, you know? Like I wanted to be good. Like I said, I've always wanted to be a top performer, but now that I'm a business owner and the sky is literally the limit, like, I get to decide how much success I do or don't have. I am so grateful for resources like this and for getting to learn from other people in the field who are hyper disciplined, hyper focused, hyper committed and are just killing it. So my best advice is listen to this podcast, pursue other resources, pursue a coach.

Julia Arpag [00:36:08]:
Like I said, said earlier, if you're serious about leveling up, running your own business or not, you can do it. And you have so many of these incredible resources at your fingertips to do it.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:17]:
Awesome. Well, Julia, I just want to say thank you for coming on. I still can't believe five months in your maternity leave you got or five weeks out.

Julia Arpag [00:36:25]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:25]:
Yeah, five weeks. You got let go like it was crazy.

Julia Arpag [00:36:27]:
I know you're a parent of a little, so I know you know exactly what that feels like.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:31]:
Yeah. Like, I don't think that would have made as much sense if I didn't have a little kid at home.

Julia Arpag [00:36:36]:
But now you're like, wait, that's, like, really not okay. Yeah, I know. Benjamin itch. You hear stories every day of people that are freaking whiplashed at very, very sensitive moments. Just yesterday, I saw a post on LinkedIn. This girl, she got a job offer, and they rescinded it after she told them she was pregnant. Like it is.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:56]:
I saw that same one, and I. And I've been so, like, kind of, like, angry going into this podcast for you because of that post yesterday.

Julia Arpag [00:37:05]:
Me too. Thank you. But hear me say, like I said, for me personally, I had to be kicked out of the nest. So I'm genuinely grateful that I got laid off. But also, it's given me a lot of empathy and commitment to not being that kind of CEO and leader. Like, I run our organization so lean, and I'll be honest, I save a weird amount of money in the business because as I'm employing young, potential future parents, I don't want to do to them what was done to me. So I appreciate your compassion. I promise it worked out.

Julia Arpag [00:37:35]:
But, yes, I very much believe in being a force for good.

Benjamin Mena [00:37:38]:
Awesome. Well, Julia, thank you so much for coming on. Make sure to find her LinkedIn profile, click the follow button, and for the recruiters out there listening, I hope you guys make 2024 your best year yet. Keep crushing it, guys.

Julia Arpag [00:37:49]:
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Elite Recruiter podcast with Benjamin Mena. If you enjoyed, hit subscribe. Subscribe and leave a rating.